Overview
NetComm Suisse and DAGORÀ SA were looking to develop a new innovation lab in Ticino, aimed for Mid-Tech companies, brands and growing businesses interested in creating or working with new technologies, trends and insights within the lifestyle industry.
The main requirements for the development of the project were:
- Promotional launch of the project
- Environmental interventions to enhance the user experience inside the building
Roles:
Nydia & Paolo:
Research, Concept Development and Prototype development
Leyla:
Research, Concept Development, Interface design and branding.
Jean:
Interface design and graphic development.
Duration:
3 Weeks
The Process
Benchmark & Field Research
Since our objective was to understand how do co-working spaces function and the added value for users to attend and develop projects within these spaces, at first we decided to visit three main working spaces in Milan: We Make, LOGIN and BASE.
Also, we conducted benchmark research to find out what makes the top co-working spaces woldwide the best, so we looked into: Talent Garden, Regus, Go Work and Hubud.
After analyzing the different findings that included space (modular and non modular), motivational activities, type of users, etc; we narrowed the main user needs and what they also consider to be an added value of this type of service:
Our main finding was realizing that most of the reasons considered by the users to be an added value for a co-working space were related to the sense of community and creating the right work relationships within the group. In order for these opportunities to happen community events are truly important.
This main finding helped us develop our main concept.
Concept Generation & Brand Development
The Brand
We needed to first develop a brand that could adopt the type of objectives that the client wished to achieve. And after a long ideation process we decided to call our project the hub, a cowork focused on innovation. Were it's people is looking to belong and connect to an inspiring community who's projects will impact the society of tomorrow.
Within the brand's presentation, we proposed the client that when the innovation lab considers to expand, they could also consider giving the brand a sense of belonging by letting the logo evolve into the initials of the community or city the labs are settled into.
You can see the evolution in the previous video.
Promotional Campaign
The Concept
Taking into consideration that we had the prints of the building, we decided to ideate several concepts to be presented to the client that were all related to the main value that is enhancing the interaction between the community members within an event, not necessarily a social one, it could be a meeting or a digital event.
And after presenting our different ideas to the client, we decided to develop: The Event Wall.
A device to be used as a tool in events to showcase several projects of the community members and help them network.
Prototype Development- The Event Wall
With the use of the P5.js and poseNet libraries, we managed to code a functioning prototype that could detect different points of a users face and shoulders by using a web camera.
Within the code, we managed to programm the graphics to trigger according to the proximity of the users and the height of the shoulders position from the camera's perspective.
User Testing
User testing allowed us to identify the type of interactions that were expected from the user's perspective. This allowed us to make enough adjustments before the final delivery to the client.
Finally, we were able to present a functioning high fidelity prototype as a main proposal and a solid brand that could be implemented at any time.
